by Charity
I didn't know what to call this post. I'm not clever with titles the way others in here are. I just want to talk about trying to take responsibility for things that fall to me as an adult.
Our system has been in near-chaos for several weeks now. Several of us have been anxious, sad, tired, frustrated, angry, or any combination of the above. And rightfully so. Work, health, system issues, family responsibilities....It all adds up, we told a co-worker, and we don't have one area of life to provide stability while we sort out the other ones. She empathetically replied that people should only have one area of life in chaos at a time.
So we'd decided to ask to see our boss's boss about some of the work issues, particularly since we couldn't resolve them with our own boss. It's hard not to approach such a meeting without fearing that we'll be seen as a nuisance or a troublemaker, that we'll be blamed for something if not everything, and that our boss will automatically have more credibility because....he's not us.
And when our boss's boss had to push back the appointment from yesterday to today, Laura got even more frustrated and ended up talking about the whole problem with our T, even though she (Laura) didn't even want to be present in session, let alone talk about something that would bring up anger. She prefers to express anger directly and quickly and be done with it, so when she's faced with a situation that she can't deal with that way, she gets even angrier.
What Laura wanted was for me to be present in T, and for me and Mary to handle the situation at work. But Mary's been unreachable for weeks, except for an occasional distant signal that tells us that she wants to be present but is unable to be. We're trying not to second-guess the cause of this blockage, because we know that doing so would lead us to thoughts of being controlled by some force, which we're not, although it's easy to get trapped in a thought pattern that leads only to feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. So we're trying to be patient and let the situation with Mary resolve itself.
In the meantime, Laura was left having to deal with preparing for the meeting at work, and she told our T that she even felt blocked from Allegra. Laura was angry about the prospect of having to be the one to meet with our boss's boss, because doing so would mean having to control her anger and pretend to have a perspective on the matter that wasn't really hers. Laura doesn't like having to hide who she is or pretend to be somebody else, and I don't blame her.
In the end, I ended up being the one who spoke to our boss's boss. Laura had finally re-established contact with Allegra first thing this morning, and they had one of their usual philosophical battles. Allegra was able to lead us through several routine work tasks before the meeting. Shortly before the appointment time, I began to feel nervous, which was a good thing, because it was mild nervousness and it enabled me to be present. I was able to state our case clearly and respectfully (with occasional help from one or two others inside), and our boss's boss listened. She repeated back to us what she heard so that she was sure that she understood correctly, and she said that she would follow up. And when we expressed concerns about not wanting to cause trouble, she said that we did the right thing by coming to her.
I just hope we can take what she says at face value. Certainly she needs to hear both sides of the story, and she's right in that the truth lies somewhere between the two conflicting points of view. We just hope that the problem will get resolved and not get even worse. :-/
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